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Monday, 14 March 2016

Here
is the link to an article by John Geddes "Building a consensus on climate change? Not so easy, after all", Ottawa bureau chief at Maclean’s, who does a
good job of distilling my point that while carbon pricing is the most
economically efficient GHG reduction policy, it is willful blindness to assume
that economic efficiency is the only criterion when trying to implement climate
policy. If regulations are more politically acceptable, especially for doing
the heavy lifting, then put some intelligence (even economic intelligence) into
designing market-oriented regulations that are relatively economically
efficient.

One might notice by the way, that in the
first two weeks of March Trudeau failed to get provinces to agree to even a
small carbon price (that would have virtually no effect on emissions - such as
$15 or $30 per tonne of CO2)) and then went to Washington and quickly signed an
agreement with Obama to dramatically reduce methane emissions from the oil and
gas industry. No mention of emissions pricing. It will be
regulation."

Canada has consistently failed to deliver, but it’s not too late
for us to make a major contribution at the climate summit in Paris.

The other day I heard an environmental advocate argue that Prime
Minister Justin Trudeau needed to make an ambitious commitment at the UN Paris
climate summit (COP 21) to atone for all the “climate fossil” awards won by our
previous prime minister. I’m not so sure.

Remember when newly elected President Barack Obama won the Nobel
Peace Prize? He hadn’t yet done anything. Apparently the Nobel committee
bestowed the award simply because he was not George W. Bush. In the same vein,
Trudeau will be welcomed because he is not Stephen Harper.

I am not saying, of course, that Trudeau should just go to Paris
and smile. But to make a real contribution, he will need to be brutally honest
about why UN negotiations have failed for over two decades and equally honest
about why Canada’s emission reduction efforts have also continuously failed.

Carbon taxes and caps may be most
effective in economic theory, but smart regulation will produce better climate
policy for our political reality.

Wisely,
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau resisted the temptation at the Paris climate
summit in December to double down on Stephen Harper’s 2030 target for Canadian
carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. While future emissions promises are easily
made, effective climate policy is devilishly difficult. To have any chance,
Trudeau needs to stay wise — which starts by avoiding advice from technology
and policy advocates who themselves avoid inconvenient evidence from leading
climate policy research and real-world experience. What does this evidence tell
us?

For
one thing, it’s a mistake to expect a big contribution from energy efficiency.
For three decades, governments and utilities have made efficiency the focus of
their emissions reduction efforts, with negligible results. Yes, energy
efficiency is always improving, and we can slightly accelerate that trend. But
humans require energy for basic needs and, more important, we keep inventing
frivolous devices that use more. (Need evidence? Stroll through your local
big-box store.)